A/N: This is my first attempt at writing a fic in a language that isn't mine and my first attempt at writing for this fandom, so be gentle if you can :-P
I have to say thank you to my dear friend Ersy, because she accepted to be my beta-reader. She was really precious and I adore her with all my heart.
This is for my friend Jessica who loves these two characters as much as I do. I love you, Je, you know it .
Unfortunately Jane and Maura don't belong to me, otherwise this would happen in season 3 for sure. I write just for fun. Enjoy!
Jane pushed Maura against the wall of her office with such an fury that for a moment she wondered if she had hurt her.
But it was just a moment, because the next second she was putting her hands on her former friend's shoulders in order to keep her still.
"How dare you?" the honey-blonde haired woman cried out between gritted teeth.
Maura wasn't hurt. She was outraged and didn't want to stay still.
She didn't want Jane's warm breath on her face, she didn't want the tingle of raven curly hair on her cheek, long slender fingers drawing in her skin, leaving invisible scars.
She had enough of them. They were carefully covert in all her hidden places.
Jane's touch was making them all burning at the same time and she couldn't take it any longer.
Hazel eyes met chocolate ones and Maura's mind went blank.
It was a defense mechanism and at least it was making possible for her to breathe.
"Let go of me" she said, her voice pregnant with anger and something that Jane couldn't quite figure out.
She tried to push back, but the detective was so much stronger and so much stubborn that Maura 's back didn't leave the wall at all.
She was trapped but she wasn't giving up without a fight.
"I said, let go of me" the doctor repeated, this time she put her hands against Jane's chest, clasping the woman's white shirt in her fists.
"One month" the taller woman whispered in her hoarse voice "...one month of silence and the first thing you say to me is this?"
She was even closer now that Maura had to blend her elbows. One of Jane legs was between hers to held her in place. Narrow hips against gentler ones.
Vanilla and fear, Maura thought and it made her shiver.
"What are you scared of, Jane?"
"What?"
She wasn't expecting this question and her heart was caught in a strange place in her throat.
"Are you deaf?" Maura dared to ask, a provocative glint in her eyes.
"Don't be a smartass, now, Doctor Isles" the Italian detective replied leaning forward so much that the tip of her nose brushed the other woman's.
Her leg was now more firmly between Maura's who had to stop herself from letting a sigh escape from her pronounced lips.
"So, why don't you answer my question?"
"I'm not scared"
"Liar"
Jane's fingers went deeper in Maura's skin.
She winced, but she didn't back down.
"You better watch your little mouth, Maura"
Now Jane's voice was even hoarser than usual and the petite woman felt her cheeks flush but not out of fear, nor shame.
"Or what? You'll shoot me too? I'm not afraid of you"
"Shoot you? Really Maura?"
"I could scream, you know? The entire BPD would be here in less than a minute. Is that what you want?"
Jane knew a bluff when she saw one and she surely knew how to play along.
The truth was that she was tired of playing games.
She had done it enough in the past month and even before, when the only way she could get through the day without going crazy was pretending it was all part of an intricate, puckish, private joke between her and her best friend.
"I want...you to stay"
If Maura hadn't be so close she could have missed it.
Jane's voice seemed so fragile now that the other woman knew it was the first honest thing she had said so far.
"That's not possible. I'm leaving for New York in two weeks. It's all settled"
"No, you won't"
"Yes, I will"
"We need you here. I...I need you here"
Maura's hands let go of Jane's shirt, but they stayed where they were.
She felt her shiver and her own knees became weaker.
Jane was incredibly close, head down, her forehead on Maura's shoulder, her hands now reaching for the other woman's hands on her chest to hold them in her own.
"I was just doing my job"
Maura stiffened, she hated those words, she had heard them enough from anyone at the Department since that horrible day. Even from her own mother.
They didn't understand that it was exactly the thing that was hurting her the most.
How could they, after all?
"We've already been through this. I don't want to listen to you"
"I'll make you listen this time"
"Jane, stop..." her voice was less steady, but not less determined.
"I shot myself, Maura. I shot through my own body so that you and Frankie could be safe. I let Marino take me without even a fight, because otherwise he was going to take you and I couldn't let it happen"
"Jane..." it sounded almost like a plea now.
"I killed Hoyt with my bare hands, no second thoughts. I could have killed him before, but I didn't, because before he hadn't touched you..."
A single tear streamed down her face and Maura knew that her body was going to betray her.
She was relieved the other woman couldn't see her face, but her heart beating so furiously was giving her away nevertheless.
"I let the Mob kill a man, because I couldn't stand the possibility of risking your life"
"You...you told my father? You made that call?"
Jane could only slightly nod at Maura's trembling question.
"I...I let a man..."
A deep sigh.
"I let a man I barely knew fuck me, because it was the right thing to do. It was the only way to get those stupid ideas out of my mind..."
"What...what ideas, Jane?"
"Wrong ones..."
"Tell me"
"They were driving me crazy. You were driving me crazy, Maura"
There were only heavy breaths in the silence.
And two women holding on each other like their lives depended on it.
Maura was still trapped and Jane was still keeping her against the wall, but on the outside it looked like they were hugging each other.
It looked like they were healing each other.
And maybe, somehow, they were.
"It didn't work, though. The morning after I was so tense that I slapped his hand away. And you? You were my first thought. You are always my first thought in the morning. You and your goofy smile when you see me, your stupid habit to have tea instead of coffee and give me a lecture about it while we have breakfast together. The way your right hand lingers on my left arm a little longer before we say goodbye and go our separate ways"
"Tea is not stupid, it doesn't have a brain on its on" Maura said, as a matter of fact.
Jane smiled silently and her heart felt less heavy for the first time in the last month.
"You were still there and I couldn't stand it. So I tried harder. I had to. I trusted him like I would have trusted you. I confided in him like I do in you. I promised myself that from that moment on I wouldn't let my feelings for you control my decisions. And I made the biggest mistake of my life"
For a moment Jane stayed quite and Maura processed all the new information.
It was overwhelming and she wondered if without Jane she would have been able to stand on her feet.
"It's what I am supposed to do, right? Find a man, marry him, have 2.5 children, maybe even love him if I'm lucky. It's how things need to be done. It's how my Italian Catholic family raised me. I'm not supposed to..."
Another shattered breath, this time more painful than the ones before.
Maura could only try not to hold Jane's hands back even if she was dying to do so.
"I'm not supposed to desire all that things with you, am I?"
"Oh, Jane..."
It's all the other woman managed to say before silent tears covered both of her cheeks.
Jane felt them die on the crown of her head.
"You knew that I wanted it too, didn't you?" the doctor asked in a whisper.
"Yes..."
"That's why you never let me completely in. Every time we got too close, you stepped back a little..."
"Yes..."
"It was our tacit agreement"
"Yes..."
"It wasn't enough, anymore. Was it?"
"No, it wasn't"
One of Maura hands left Jane's and reached for her cheek. She found it damp and warm and she couldn't help but caress it with her thumb.
It was an implied invite for Jane to raise her head, but the detective didn't trust herself enough to do it and not shatter to a million of pieces.
"I'm not done" she whispered instead.
"You were doing your job" Maura said for her.
"Yes, I was. A FBI agent was down hurt, a mob chief had still a gun in his hand, Frost was in danger and so was I. I had to make a decision in less than a second. I pulled the trigger. I did what every cop would have done. I didn't do what I would have done. What a best friend would have done. What a woman who loved that man's daughter would have done and I will regret it for the rest of my life"
The sigh that left Maura's lips was of such a relief that Jane wondered if she had been holding her breath for the entire time.
"I screwed up, Maura. I'm sorry..." she added with a sob.
"I know. Now, I know..." the doctor whispered through her dark hair.
"I'm sorry" Jane repeated more desperately and she kissed the base of Maura's neck.
"I'm sorry" another kiss, above.
"I'm sorry" her lips were now on Maura's tensed jaw.
"I'm so sorry" her last barely audible apology, while she kissed the corner of Maura's trembling mouth.
She left them stay there for a few more seconds, then she finally raised her head.
Wet eyes in wet eyes, it was like meeting again for the first time.
But this time they recognized each other, like they had met before in another life.
Maura was smiling and Jane remembered in that moment how to breathe.
"I forgive you"
"I love you"
"You should let me go now"
"I can't. You will go away from me"
Another faint smile. Jane didn't know if she deserved it.
"Are you still scared?"
"To death..."
Maura moved Jane's hair out of her shoulders and then she took her face in her hands.
She was so beautiful even if she was still crying and her expression was still pained.
"I missed you so much" she confessed, the game was over.
"Maura..."
"Don't say anything else..."
And in a moment her lips were on Jane's.
Soft, delicate lips. Feminine lips.
They barely touched but Jane felt it everywhere.
She finally let it go.